Mark Waters

Though he earned his place atop the Hollywood food chain directing mainstream comedies with teenybopper Lindsay Lohan in the leads, director Mark S. Waters started his career with "House of Yes" (1997...
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Bluegrass legend Dixie Hall has died, aged 80. The songwriter and wife of Tom T. Hall passed away on Friday (16Jan15) at her home in Nashville, Tennessee.
Born Iris Violet May Lawrence in England, Dixie moved to Nashville in the early 1960s and befriended Mother Maybelle Carter, the matriarch of country music's first family, The Carters, who became an early mentor.
She enjoyed success with songs such as Truck Drivin' Son of a Gun and Troublesome Waters, which was recorded by Johnny Cash, among others.
Dixie also made her mark as a journalist and wrote for publications including Music City News.
She met Tom T. Hall in the mid-1960s and the future couple began a career as a hitmaking country and bluegrass songwriting team.
They were awarded a distinguished achievement honour from the International Bluegrass Music Association in 2004.

Regina George (Rachel McAdams) from Mean Girls is rightfully an iconic character. She represents that mean, popular girl in school that a lot of people adore but shouldn't. She could be the sweetest person if she likes you, or she can make your life a living nightmare if she doesn't.But, she isn't the best fictional mean girl. Sorry to break it you, but Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester) from Gossip Girl makes Regina George look like Taylor Swift.
1. Blair gets into an Ivy League school which makes her even more intimidating.
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Regina on the other hand is too busy trying to get answers for these type of questions:
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2. Blair has fashion rules for her followers that actually make sense.
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The Plastics' rules don't really have any rhyme or reason to them.
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3. Blair doesn't pretend to be nice. She will tell you straight up what you're going to get from her.
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Regina would waste everyone's time with weird small talk.
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4. Blair knows how to keep her minions in line!
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Regina gets ousted from her own lunch table. Amateur!
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5. Blair's admirers are the paparazzi.
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Regina's admirers are just her classmates.
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6. This is Regina's idea of a good Halloween costume.
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But, Blair Waldorf knows how to pick a costume. How else do you establish your dominance than dress up as Aubrey Hepburn and kill it?
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7. This is Regina's only tie to fame.
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On the other hand, Rachel Bilson auditions to be Blair in a movie!
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8. Regina's mother is an embarrassing nightmare.
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Blair's mother is a bragging point since she is the reason behind their fashion empire, and she is a loving mother.
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9. Also if we put Aaron Samuels...
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Against Chuck...
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Well, we would pick Blair's man any day.
10. When Blair wants to ruin your life, she goes to finding your deepest, darkest secrets.
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When Regina wants to ruin your life, her plans ends up backfiring and everyone turns on her.
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Sorry Regina, but you can't sit with us! Do you agree that Blair is the better mean girl? Tweet us your answers using the Twitter handles below!
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"I wanted to play Regina. I had just played - in Confessions and Freaky Friday - not the cool girl in school. I was still 17 years old and I wanted to be the cool girl on set. So I had a war with him (director Mark Waters), and he goes, 'No, Cady is the heroine, and that's who you are'." Lindsay Lohan initially wanted Rachel McAdams' role in Mean Girls.

The Weinstein Company
Although we’ve seriously moved on from all things vampire, we think Vampire Academy might be able to make them cool again. In recent years, zombies, witches, and werewolves have surpassed vampires in the high school hierarchy, but that could all change when Vampire Academy hits theaters on Feb. 14.
Vampire Academy is based on the widely popular book series by Richelle Mead that first came out in 2007. The film adaptation combines two heavy-hitters in teen Hollywood movies. It’s directed by Mark Waters, who also brought us Mean Girls, while the script was co-written by Daniel Waters, who wrote the cult-classic Heathers (which some have described as the ‘80s version of Mean Girls.) With such great people on board, how could Vampire Academy not be a hit?
After watching the trailer, fans of the series will notice that many of the best scenes from the book have made it into the film — it seems very little has been changed in the adapting process. An exclusive clip released by MTV gave us a longer look at one of those scenes. The fast paced dialogue is on par with many of the best teen dramas and the characterization of the main players seems to be spot on.
From what we can tell, Vampire Academy doesn’t just look like a really cool vampire movie — although it does, even though we hate ourselves for saying it — it looks like it’s going to be a really cool teen movie. (We’re not saying it’s as good as Mean Girls and Heathers just yet, but it could be.)
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Columbia Pictures
The opening scene of American Hustle — a loud, loquacious, upper-fueled romp through the avenues of high stakes swindling — plays somewhat like a Buster Keaton short. We watch a schlubby Christian Bale fumble (with as much delicacy as someone can, in fact, fumble) with a greasy combover and a dime store toupee, laughing at the small scale physical comedy and learning more than you'd expect about Bale's con man character Irving Rosenfeld before we even meet him or hear him speak.
But there is nary a silent moment in the two-and-half hours to follow. Its people speak in explosions. The passions are dialed all the way up between Irv, his accomplice and girlfriend Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams), and the venemous FBI agent (Bradley Cooper) who rangles the pair into the biggest heist of their career. There's no tranquility in the waters of their high-stakes operation to take down a New Jersey mayor, the Italian mob, and quite possibly a few of the dirtier suits in Congress. When things proceed like clockwork, we're talking diving pendulums and cuckoo birds darting from every crevice. Naturally, it's all the more fun when things go awry.
And, of course they do. It wouldn't be a heist movie without a few cogs springing loose. But the beauty of American Hustle is in its undoing. From start to finish, Irv and Sydney are pros at the game. They leave no stone unturned in pulling the wool over the eyes of every deadbeat, mafioso, and active senator that finds his unlucky way into their eyeline. Even the misguided improvisations of Cooper's control freak lawman don't serve to uproot the plans from their course. We don't suffer through a dropping of their guard or an overlooking of important details. Everything that goes wrong in this movie is embedded in character.
The follies, screw-ups, and mutinies are all emotionally charged, inspired by romantic rivalry, ego, flights of affection, and the ribald distate that so many of these people have for each other. Everything in this big, flashy, high-stakes movie is personal. It's a toxic, burning love/hate/envy/longing/attraction/friendship/enmity between every conceivable pairing in this dynamic cast of rich, strong, uproarious characters that fuels the movie and drags down the scheme at its center.
Columbia Pictures
And just about everyone we meet is dragged into the maniacal nucleus by the arms of anxious passion. Irv's spitfire wife Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence) outranks the lot of her company in the screws-loose department, stirring the pot of her unfaithful husband's business dealings as soon as she crosses the threshold into his world. The psychopathically dutiful Richie (Cooper) sees anyone who tries to temper his occupational obsessions as the enemy, even his pragmatic Midwesterner boss (Louis C.K.). And at the head of the race is Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner), unaware of his place in this tremendous game but coursing at top speeds on an engine of his democratic heart nonetheless. The characters are all operating at 11, and most of the actors are able to keep up.
As Irv, a uniquely undesirable Bale is a laugh every minute. We enter this world through him — a world of accessible lies, of rough-and-tumble New York streets, of Long Island parties, of Duke Ellington, of hairpieces, of dry cleaners, of only conning the men you can stomach the idea of laying to waste — and have a terrific time walking in his footsteps. Always just out of reach is Adams as Sydney, who cons herself just as often as she does Richie, Irv, and the poor saps who fall for her seductive act. Bale and Adams are the standouts of the cast — playing their hearts on their sleeves and tucked away tightly, respectively — so it's good fortune that most of our time is spent with one or the other.
The power players from director David O. Russell's last effort, Cooper and Lawrence, shine a bit dimmer here — Cooper plays Richie as petulant, misguided, and teetering on the edge, but he's undercooked beside the far meatier material presented by Bale and Adams. Lawrence, while not without her moments, never seems to commit altogether to the loon that is Rosalyn, alternating between too reserved and too outlandish to really make the character feel like somebody. But the biggest surprise of the lot might be Renner, who has more fun as his Jersey boy Carmine than he ever has onscreen. But in earnest, some credit goes to the hair.
It's the electricity of American Hustle that keeps its long narrative from dragging. We have fun with the characters, the performances, and the colorful world itself. The movie never insists that we feel anything beyond that, but offers a few bites of some authentic empathy for Irv and his kind nonetheless. So we can dip into the bustling character work that Bale and Adams are mastering, Cooper is handling, and Lawrence is just falling shy of delivering on, but we're free to latch onto the life preserver of this movie's output of comedy. There's so much to laugh at in American Hustle, and some wonderfully molded characters to do all your laughing with.
4/5
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DC Comics
UPDATE: Israeli actress Gal Gadot has officially been cast as Wonder Woman in Batman Vs. Superman. Gadot has previously appeared in The Fast and The Furious series as Gisele Harrabo.
EARLIER: Zack Snyder's upcoming Batman/Superman film has yet to be adorned with an official title but that doesn't stop rumours from spilling out of every crack and crevice of the internet.
Warner Bros producer Daniel Alter, who is not directly involved in the project but apparently still privy to information surrounding the film, tweeted the most noteworthy information when he let slip that Superman villain Doomsday will appear in the film. For the uninitiated, Doomsday is a mindless killing machine who is best known for 1992 comic book story "The Death of Superman," in which he succeeds in killing the the Man of Steel. While Doomsday's inclusion in the film is interesting, especially considering his role in one of Superman's most controversial stories, there certainly needs to be a villain with more complicated motivations beyond mindless killing to fully round out the film's antagonists. Luckily, Henry Cavill has also been talking Batman/Superman. Cavill stated in an interview with Comic Book Movie that there's a good chance that Lex Luthor will be introduced in the film. Luthor and Doomsday would prove to be a formidable duo for Batman and Superman to contend with, bringing both brains and brawn to the arena.
Alter also tweeted that the characters Wonder Woman and Nightwing would be appearing in Batman/Superman as well. DC has been struggling for years to get Wonder Woman her own film, and has even entertained the idea of creating a new Wonder Woman TV show in the past. Wonder Woman's inclusion in the film would mark the costumed heroine's first live-action adventure since the 1970s television series featuring Lynda Carter in the role as the Themyscirian princess. This seems to be the opposite tactic of rival comics publisher Marvel, a company that prefers to parcel out each of its heroes in their own standalone movie before bringing them together for a big superhero teamup, and this tactic does raise some interesting questions about Warner Bros' confidence in the character. Perhaps Warner Bros wants to test the waters and ease into the idea of a Wonder Woman standalone by giving the character a supporting role in Batman/Superman first. It seems like the studio isn't convinced that a big-screen female superhero movie will work just yet. Regardless, all of this gives us a feeling that Batman/Superman might run the risk of being overstuffed with too many superheroes without the added benefit leaving introductions to individual movies. Hopefully, the film will be able to balance all of its superpowered elements.
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Pink Floyd star Roger Waters is recording his first new rock album in over two decades. The legendary bassist/singer is back in the studio, and has told Rolling Stone magazine that he has already finished a demo of a new record.
Waters also reveals it is turning out to be a concept album, describing the yet-to-be-titled record as a story about "an old man and a young child trying to figure out why they're killing the children."
Although the 70 year old released an opera album in 2005, this will mark his first rock project since 1992 record Amused to Death.

The premise for Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy book series reads like the ultimate young adult fiction Mad Libs. In the book, a vampire named Rose Hathaway is forced to return to her magical boarding school. There, her friendships are put to the test thanks to a blossoming romance and the rise of a great evil. YAF 101.
As routine as Vampire Academy may seem, Mead's novels have an ardent following. The casting of up-and-comer Zoey Deutch (Beautiful Creatures) in the upcoming film adaptation by Mark Waters (Mean Girls) left the passionate fanbase in a tizzy, and the next big name to join the project will surely stir up controversy as only these types of movies can do. Oblivion star Olga Kurylenko will star alongside Deutch as Headmistress Ellen Kirova, the Dumbledore to Vampire Academy's Harry Potter. In the books, Rose describes her as being "a vulture." Kurylenko can certainly go there, personality wise.
Is Vampire Academy headed on track to actually become the next Twilight or Harry Potter, or is the series destined to the fate of romance-infused franchise hopefuls like Beautiful Creatures? Kurylenko has blockbuster credits to her name, but she's not a dramatic standout in the vein of the Potter ensemble. This could be a role that continues her climb to stardom… if the role fits.
Come, members of Fanpire Academy. Weigh in on Kurylenko and tell us why Vampire Academy is the series that's going to break the mold as Hollywood continues to translate popular books to the big screen.
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This Sunday, the maiden voyage of History Channel’s hit drama Vikings will come to a close — but before our characters can sail into a hiatus, they will have to face the rough waters of the Season 1 finale. To help prepare you for the journey ahead, Hollywood.com chatted with Clive Standen and he teased that this Sunday’s finale is packed with new problems and massive consequences.
Throughout the season, fans have watched as the two brothers have been fighting for power and control and now their conflicts are going to lead them to make some extremely difficult decisions in Sunday’s finale. “There are some massive choices that my brother and I — Rollo and Ragnar — have to make.” Standen tells Hollywood.com “They are at a crossroads whether they chose to stay together or go their separate ways; they’ll deal with the massive consequences.”
Standen says the he is excited for audiences to finally learn more about Rollo’s motives in the series. The actor explains, “Is he a Neanderthal? Is he actually quite Machiavellian? Is he the good guy? A lot of people have been saying that Rollo has done some questionable things and he’s lurking on being a traitor to Ragnar, but all I can say is as an actor you have to love the character you’re playing.”
The Vikings star continues, “Rollo has had a chance to take everything that Ragnar has got: his boat, his title, his work with Haraldson, to have Haraldson’s daughter and have that legacy — but he turned it all down to be loyal to his brother in the courtroom. He has done so much for Ragnar and the question that I want to ask everybody is what has Ragnar done for Rollo?”
Fans have been treated to some intensely brutal fights this season, so we made sure to ask the Vikings star if the finale will feature another heart-pounding battle. Standen reveals, “I think it’s more of a battle of wits, morale, and loyalty — there are a lot of massive decisions. There’s a lot of rapport and word play and lots of people going behind each others’ backs and lots of people manipulating people.”
Standen teases that all of these verbal backstabbing’s will eventually lead to a massive action-packed fight — but it wont be in the finale. “They’re setting it up for maybe a gigantic battle in series 2. There’s a little bit of a cliffhanger. And speaking of Season 2, Standen says that the creative forces behind Vikings are already hard at work on the sophomore season. “[Series Creator] Michael [Hirst] is working on the script and he is a genius. He tells you the information when you need it, he doesn’t want actors getting ahead of themselves — he’s a very good showrunner,” he says.
So what exactly does Standen know about the upcoming season? “There’s some crazy stuff that seems to be on the horizon and I’m really excited.” He continues, “Just having these little morsels of information just gets me so excited and I can’t wait to get back to Dublin and get to cracking on some skulls.” Standen says that the entire cast was thrilled when they learned Vikings was renewed for another year and they are eager to create ten phenomenal new episodes. “We’re all on the same page and we’re all so confident now that we’ve got a Season 2. I’m just really excited to let lose on this Rollo-coaster if you will,” The actor adds with a laugh.
Don’t miss the Season 1 finale of Vikings this Sunday at 10 PM on History.
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Barbara Walters' reported retirement at 83 doesn't just mark the end of an illustrious, wildly successful career that spans 52 years. It marks the end of a dying breed: The larger-than-life woman TV journalist.
It's without an ounce of sentimentality or nostalgia that I say, no one will ever be able to replace Walters — because Walters' position no longer exists.
RELATED: Barbara Walters To Retire?
Most famous for her incredible interviewing skills, Walters is often named on the list of the industry's best female journalists of all time, a list that sadly doesn't usually inch past 20 names. (The Atlantic's recent list makes it to 22 while top journalism school New York University stops short at 21, but both include Walters.) But her impact goes beyond the practice of TV journalism, in which she excelled by becoming the first ever female national nightly news co-anchor, followed by her newsworthy interview series The Barbara Walters Specials. Walters covered all angles of our culture, leading her to become a pop culture icon in addition to her success as a newswoman, even landing a spot on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time — a list that included Dick Van Dyke, Lassie, and Miss Piggy. In a way, Walters became the most famous face of women in journalism throughout her career. Now that she's stepping down, it's hard to imagine anyone, even the likes of Katie Couric or Christiane Amanpour, taking up her mantle.
Couric and Amanpour are important examples because they both represent different segments of Walters' legacy. Couric is forging the path as the "new Walters," coming up through the Today Show machine, being outsed as a nightly national news anchor (Walters was booted when viewers failed to accept her as a female nightly news anchor), and starting up her own series that makes headlines for its interviews. But Couric's career slides a little away from Walters' monumental example, with her daytime talk show Katie angling more towards Oprah than a Barbara Walters Special with episodes titled "Tina Fey &amp; Paul Rudd’s College Confessions" and "How to De-Stress Your Life with Goldie Hawn and Deepak Chopra."
Amanpour, on the other hand, is all business. Known primarily for her reporting, Amanpour is more of an investigative journalist than Walters, but it's her nightly news interview series Amanpour (in addition to her position as CNN's chief international reporter) that could put her at an angle to take up mantle of Walters' long list of landmark interviews, including Fidel Castro, Indira Gandhi, and Hugo Chavez.
The issue, however, is that there is no singular woman in TV journalism who is primed and ready to take up Walters' post, effortlessly balancing the seriousness of hard-hitting journalism and the pop culture appeal of a host on The View. And there never will be. Amanpour, Rachel Maddow, and MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell may be some of the leading women in TV journalism, but they're not Walters, and it's not entirely clear that they even want to be.
RELATED: Why Barbara Walters Thinks These People Are So Fascinating
Part of that comes from the way in which online journalism is segmenting TV reporting. Because of the rise of online journalism and the ability to access it through mobile devices, TV news is slowly declining. A recent study from the Pew Research Center for People and the Press reports that the number of people under 30 who get their news from television has decreased from 49 percent in 2006 to 34 percent in 2012. Meanwhile the number of people who get their news online, through social media (which includes through journalists' own Twitter feeds) has increased from nine percent to 19, and it's growing.
At the same time, few serious women journalists on TV could even qualify for a gig like Walters' post on the view. It was about a year ago that Anne Curry was pushed out of the Today Show, a spot she'd more than earned, because her style was too austere and weighty, where the show was seeking light-heartedness and fluff. Now, the morning program is reportedly seeking Anderson Cooper as a potential savior — not because of his extensive experience as a reporter, but rather his ability to cuddle Grumpy Cat, field Kathy Griffin's sexual advances on live TV, and become a giggling mess at the mention of a Gerard Depardieu bathroom pun. At this rate, it seems more likely that we'll see Miss Grumpy Cat herself or Kid President take over Walters' yearly "10 Most Fascinating People" program, than a serious personality like Maddow or Amanpour.
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But this lack of a Walters' successor isn't necessarily something to mourn — Barbara, herself, will be missed, but her position won't be, necessarily. While women journalists still have a long way to go to match the numbers and fame of their male counterparts, her placement as a sort of catch-all persona for the plight of the woman reporter has done all it can. It proved that a journalist at the top of their field doesn't have to be a man; it proved that an interview with a political leader can be just an influential as one with a pop icon; it proved that a woman could become wildly famous for more than her beauty or her charm, but for the brain inside her head.
And as we move further and further into an age of famed Internet-based journalists and more specialized TV journalists like Amanpour — who has a lock on international news — and Maddow, who built her career on her outspokenness and honesty rather than her universal appeal, the echo of Walters' influence is everpresent. And in a way that's the highest compliment she could be paid: she's infinitely influential and completely irreplaceable.
Follow Kelsea on Twitter @KelseaStahler
[Photo Credits: Donna Svennevik/ABC; Peter Kramer/AP Photo]
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Summary

Though he earned his place atop the Hollywood food chain directing mainstream comedies with teenybopper Lindsay Lohan in the leads, director Mark S. Waters started his career with "House of Yes" (1997), a dark comedy about incest and obsession. While a movie that pokes fun at incest might not be the surest path to fame and glory, "House of Yes" did earn Waters plenty of critical kudos and recognition at film festivals, particularly Sundance, where star Parker Posey won the 1997 Best Acting Award. Waters soon learned, however, that art and commerce stand in stark opposition, existing outside and sometimes despite each other, a realization that led him to make standard Hollywood fare before dipping his t back into darker waters.